


Pipe Dream

by rubyliam



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 11:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14259912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyliam/pseuds/rubyliam
Summary: Nathaniel was still in a daze when he woke up.





	Pipe Dream

Nathaniel was still in a daze when he woke up. He didn’t know where he was, but his body hurt. His face burned. His arms felt as if they were still being burned, still being marked. The hostile smell of hospital hit his nostrils as he took a big intake of air, turning his head with a groan. There were two people in his room, detectives, Nathaniel could tell, from the way they showed themselves.

Then it clicked. He was in the hospital, his wounds were fixed. He had been there for at least a day. The men in his room were Kurt and Browning; the same who were in his room before, the first time Nathaniel woke up.

The men didn’t take a for Nathaniel to actually wake up before explaining. “You will be going into the witness protection program. Every data of Neil will be wiped away. Neil Josten is no longer. Number ten on the Palmetto State Foxes will be given to whoever they recruit. Your coach, David Wymack, will tell press that you dropped out of school, and out of the team.”

“I want to speak to them.” Nathaniel’s voice as still hoarse. “I want to talk to the Foxes.”

“They are no one to you. You will be moved to a different state, where you will be in twenty four-seven watch.”

“They are my family.”

It was the first time Neil had said those words out loud. He had been claiming it to himself for months; that the people on that team were his family. 

“The Palmetto State Foxes are no one to you,” Browning said, putting more pressure to the words. “You will not be allowed to speak to them. Let it go, Nathaniel.”

“I want to talk to Andrew.”

“Your teammates will be told by federal agents to never speak of you again. They will never mention you as Neil Josten.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t just erase me from everything.”

“It’s what you’ve been doing for years.” Kurt said, speaking up. “Which, you will be telling us with more depth in due time.”

“I didn’t say teammates. I said Andrew.”

But the agents didn’t say anything else, they went back to their papers, ignoring Nathaniel when he demanded to speak to Neil. They even walked out of the room, at one point, and left Nathaniel shouting to speak to Andrew. He shouldn’t have given up, shouldn’t have stopped fighting. But that was the very thing he did, lying there and screaming in that hospital bed.

_Four years later_

Andrew Minyard hated his new team.

He would say part of him wished for the Foxes back, but even they hadn’t ever been a team. There was the one year, that one season in his sophomore, when they had won most of their games, the streak of the season stopping at their game against the USC Trojans. Andrew still wasn’t sure what had made that happen, but didn’t pay much attention to it. The Palmetto Foxes lost a lot after that, recruits joining the team enough to make them qualify, and win some games, but not any seasons from Andrew’s sophomore year to his senior was like that one year.

All he needed was to get through college, and maybe just spend his life after in the sport of Exy--no matter how much he hated it.

The only ones of them which Andrew spoke to were Nicky and Renee. Though Renee wasn’t on the team, she still checked in on him every day, as if expecting him to break. He wouldn’t ever break. Andrew doesn’t break.

There was a slight reunion at Nicky and Erik’s wedding two years ago, when all of them were put at the same table. They had all shown up, yes, to make Nicky happy on his _big day_ , but none of them spoke. Nicky tried to get them to talk, and Renee attempted too, but there was a big weight on everyone. A weight that Andrew wasn’t aware of, that Andrew didn’t bother caring.

He didn’t want the Foxes back. There wasn’t one part of him that wished for them, because they were all a mess and a half.

“Good game tonight,” his coach shouted. “Be on the court eight thirty sharp Monday!”

Andrew headed out of the locker room, clean of the sweat built up from the game and his soaked jersey, pulling his hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. He moved his hands into the front pockets of his blue piece of clothing, Andrew kept his head down, tracing the path of memory back to the front doors.

It would’ve been much easier, if not for the man he knocked into on his way.

Even if he was taller by just a little, the man seemed to stumble back, eyeing Andrew when he lifted his head to look.

“Could you watch where you’re going?”

And for a second, for just a moment, the visual of the man messed with something in his mind. The sight of a boy with auburn hair and icy blue eyes, grinning with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The memory of kissing the same boy, of _yes_ or _nos_ but always yeses. The vision of handing over keys, of secrets trading for secrets--honesty. The words ‘ _Thank you. You were amazing,_ ’ hanging in his brain.

The boy--a side effect of the drugs. He didn’t exist, would never exist again.

“I’m sorry,” the man mumbled after a state of shock of his own. He walked away, hiding more into himself with his head hung and shoulders hunched.

The boy--a pipe dream indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first andreil fic. I hope y'all like it!


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